Why Austin’s Grand Prix Is America’s Biggest F1 Race

Although Miami and Las Vegas grab the headlines, this weekend’s U.S. Grand Prix will outdraw both races—and it continues to pick up speed.

The debut of the Miami Grand Prix last year set a Formula 1 record in the United States with an average viewership of 2.6 million. This year, all eyes are on another American addition to the F1 calendar, the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which will hit the Strip next month and become—in the words of one series executive—“the home of Formula 1 in the U.S.”

Lost in the shuffle has been the race that, in many ways, is sitting in pole position, with ten more years of history, a far larger crowd and claim to the name “U.S. Grand Prix.”

That would be the series’ stop in Austin, Texas, which had a rocky few years financially after coming onto the scene in 2012 but is expected to draw three-day attendance this weekend in line with last year’s 440,000—about 60% better than Miami this year and about 40% more than Las Vegas’ projections.

And Circuit of the Americas, the track that hosts Austin’s Grand Prix, says it might not be done growing.

This being Texas, of course, there’s plenty of room for that—COTA sits on 1,500 acres in the countryside about a half-hour’s drive southeast of downtown Austin. But the sprawling site, surrounded by rolling, desolate hills, highlights the improbable rise of what is now one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

While Formula 1 has raced in the U.S. off and on since the series’ inaugural season in 1950—back then, the Indianapolis 500 was considered part of the calendar—the sport hasn’t had a consistent American home. Cities hosting the U.S. Grand Prix have included Sebring, Florida; Riverside, California; Watkins Glen, New York; and Phoenix. Indianapolis hosted a final edition of the race in 2007, and it, along with the New York City region, drew most of the speculation as a possible site for F1’s return to America a few years later.

Instead, the event was granted to Austin’s COTA and its purpose-built 3.41-mile racetrack.

“Austin was not a tip-of-the-tongue destination,” says COTA chairman and cofounder Bobby Epstein. “In fact, for a long time, we battled people overseas—we had some confusion with Boston, Massachusetts, and really that went on for a long time.”

Epstein, whose background was in the bond business, owned some land outside Austin that had been earmarked for a housing development, but the real estate market had collapsed. So he got involved with the F1 business plan and eventually, after a series of construction setbacks, partnership disputes and other complications, ended up in charge.

Attendance was immediately strong, with a three-day total of 265,000 in 2012, but the race needed a subsidy from a Texas program for large events—initially $25 million, trimmed to $19.5 million in 2015—to stay afloat. “You can’t sell enough tickets or popcorn to pay the F1 sanctioning fee,” Epstein explains. (The fees are kept confidential, but one industry source believes they can run as high as $60 million annually, on top of $30 million to $50 million in operating costs for a permanent-circuit course.)

The calculus changed, however, after COTA decided to add major musical acts to the race weekend’s entertainment, starting in 2016 with—who else?—Taylor Swift as the headliner. Since then, artists have included Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel and Post Malone, with the Killers, Queen (fronted by Adam Lambert) and Tiësto taking the stage this weekend. Epstein notes that the organizers had to convince die-hard racing fans that they were not being abandoned, but the opportunity to attract more casual fans—who skewed younger and female—was too great to pass up.

“And it’s not just the music—we really turn this into a festival and make use of the acreage,” Epstein says, calling out the site’s campgrounds and its four “villages” with different food and entertainment options, plus a new amusement park set to open within a year and a half. “We want you not to walk more than a minute or two without running into something, whether it’s a performer or an artist or a themed bar.”

Over the last seven years, attendance at the U.S. Grand Prix has nearly doubled, and the number of sponsors has risen to 63 in 2023, from 41 in 2019, with blue-chip brands such as American Express, Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola new additions this year. (Formula 1 retains most of the race’s sponsorship revenue, however, not Circuit of the Americas.)

Epstein is predictably diplomatic about the two other American races now on the F1 calendar, saying that the level of attention each gets should even out over the next few years and pointing out that Austin similarly reached an equilibrium with the Mexican Grand Prix after that race returned to the schedule in 2015.

Fans “will find what they like about the different races and why one may fit them better than another,” Epstein says. Austin, for example, has embraced a nickname as “the people’s race” and emphasizes the value of its tickets, which start at $249 for Sunday’s race—a far cry from some of the astronomical numbers the Las Vegas Grand Prix is commanding.

And while F1 teams have different priorities than promoters like Epstein do, no one on the grid seems all that concerned that America is the only country hosting more than two races. “The U.S. is such a big market and such a crucial market for Formula 1,” team principal Christian Horner told Forbes on Wednesday at Red Bull Racing’s Make Your Mark event, unveiling the team’s custom livery for Austin’s Grand Prix. “I mean, it’s the whole size of Europe, pretty much. So it makes sense that we have three races here.”

Whether or not there’s any fan cannibalization, Austin is set to remain on the F1 calendar through at least 2026 and intends to continue its battle with Melbourne’s Australian Grand Prix to crack 500,000 in three-day attendance. The race-day figure is currently around 150,000, and Epstein says the track has a plan that could push that number toward 200,000.

“It’s just all about logistics,” he says, citing the need for a highway expansion, continued improvement with the track’s bus system and enough available labor for an event that employs up to 8,000 a day. “We’re testing something new this year, and if it goes well, we can certainly handle a bigger crowd. And then we just need to see the demand is there.”

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